Alpha4 release status
BogDan
bog_dan_ro at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 11 16:29:06 UTC 2012
Hi Willy,
>
> I just want to add my 2cents.
>
> I agree with one big thing: get Necessitas working _well_ at least for
> something, soon... as soon as possible!
>
This is also our goal !
>
> I have a quite actvie userbase for my app on Symbian. They are very supportive
> but are all switching slowly to Android... unless i can start supporting Android
> within the next months (september, october at most, something usable for real by
> december to anticipate the Christmas rush to android), i am going to lose them
> for good to the various apps like mine already android native. I bet this is
> true for most of Qt/Symbian apps.
>
> I think if something does not start working good soon, most of the interest in
> Qt for Android will decrease. Myself i am starting thinking about rewriting my
> codebase to achieve a total separation ui-core and, in fall, to work on an
> native andorid UI if i have to.
>
> Technical considerations apart, my fear is that either necessitas is not ready
> to give something usable at least on some arch, or it will never catch on.
> Unless a substantial numebr of apps start using Necessitas, it will just be
> another framework out there, one with a huge download requirement which is less
> appealing than others.
>
> So my appeal is: forget perfection, get out something usable quickly please!
> Honestly, alpha2 was _more_ usable than alpha3, and ICS made just thing worse.
> Alpha4 is late, i have ICS users (a few, but...) pissed off and switching away.
>
Why alpha2 is _more_ usable than alpha3? What alpha2 has and is not in the alpha3?
What are the problems with ICS?
>
> I know i have never contributed actively, and this i feel like a shame on me,
> but all my free time is already taken up by supporting Symbian, and i am too
> just one developer on the project like the BogDan so i both understand him and
> fully support him. I know it's hard when you don't have time but people
> keep hitting on you with requests and bugs!
>
> Maybe we could help BogDan, if not using time, at least helping him get a new,
> powerfull laptiop to speed up compilation time?
>
AH, sorry, it wasn't my intention to start donation/founding campaign :), and if it looks
like one, I apologize. Of course if anybody wants to contribute, I'm not going to refuse :-P.
Cheers,
BogDan.
> Il 10.06.2012 22:06 Harri Pasanen ha scritto:
>> Reading David Turner's mail from [1], it seems that Android atomics
>> are not SMP safe either, so in that sense using those is not any
>> better than Qt atomics?
>>
>> In your solutions list you refer "fast atomics", but what are
> those?
>> If I understood you correctly, there are 3 options, Qt, android and
>> gcc. First two are fast but not SMP safe, last is slow but SMP safe.
>>
>> Are you saying that Qt armv7 is SMP safe and fast?
>>
>> If so, I'd vote for dropping arm5 support. It would also make the
>> development/testing cycle faster with one less architecture to
>> support. Usually arm5 devices are so low end with
>> memory/screen/speed wise that they don't work well in any case.
>>
>> I'd rather have a Qt that is ready and working well for a subset of
>> devices than none at all.
>>
>> I don't care about backward compatibility for my Qt Android apps
>> (yet). I can always recompile those, and if I don't, the deserve to
>> die. While it is in Alpha this is expected. Once in beta, backwards
>> compatibility is required.
>>
>> The way I see it, Qt/Necessitas can get lots of new developers
>> interested for new projects if basics and new stuff works well. So I'd
>> worry about new devices, Qt 5/QML, and try to trim down work required
>> on maintenance type activities. So from my perspective QtWidgets,
>> arm5, backwards compatibility all can be dropped now.
>>
>> Anyways, keep up the good work!
>>
>> Just my 2 cents,
>>
>> Harri
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 06/10/2012 09:15 PM, BogDan Vatra wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Many thanks for kind words !
>>>
>>> Sadly, the magic happened :). The good news is that it was my fault,
>>> the bad news it that my worst nightmare happened ... :(
>>> After I write my first mail I begin to cherry-pick all my changes from
>>> alpha4 and put them on top of alpha3 branch, then I spot a patch which
>>> caught my attention, and I really hoped it's not the cause of this
>>> problem, but it was ...
>>> Some time ago somebody complained on this mailing list about the fact
>>> that he could not be able to compile necessitas anymore using ndk-r7,
>>> soon I discovered that the atomics functions where not exported
>>> anymore in ndk-r7, then my nightmare began, first I post the problem
>>> on android-ndk mailing list[1], then Google suggest me that I should
>>> switch to gcc's built in atomics which I did[2]. I knew that the
> gcc
>>> built in atomics are not the fastest in the world, but I never thought
>>> that they are that bad. Android atomics support on necessitas is a
>>> long story, which began more than a year ago, I'll try to make it
>>> shorter for you :)
>>> For the very first android atomics implementation, I used Qt's arm
>>> atomics, but I had to switch to gcc built-in atomics (yes, the second
>>> implementation was based on gcc atomics) because Qt's arm5 atomics
>>> where useless for Android, I'll try to explain why: The problem is
>>> that Qt's arm5 atomics are not SMP safe, so, is probable that your
> app
>>> will crash on a dual-core device. arm5 is very important because it is
>>> supported by all arm android devices, so it must be SMP safe. I
>>> address this problem last year at QCS[3], and somebody offer to help,
>>> but sadly nothing happened. So, I had to find a solution myself,
> GCC's
>>> implementation is using a sort of memory barrier (a mutext or
>>> something) to make it SMP safe, that why is so slow, then I discover
>>> that google is providing atomics in libc, which they should be SMP
>>> safe, so I switched to android atomics, then google change their mind
>>> and now they are dropping the support, so I had to switch back to gcc.
>>>
>>> To "fix" this problem I see the following
> "solutions":
>>> 1. Ignore Google warning and keep using android atomics.
>>> 2. Stay with gcc atomics, but is too slow.
>>> 3. Build Qt libs with fast atomics, but find a way to have safe
>>> atomics for arm5.
>>> 4. Build Qt libs with fast atomics, but use GCC atomics for apps.
>>> 5. Build Qt libs with fast atomics, but don't make qt atomics
> inline
>>> anymore, this way your apps will use what qt provides for that
>>> platform. They will be a little by slower but they should be safe.
>>> This is my favorite solution, but I afraid that it will break the ABI
>>> ...
>>>
>>> It is safe to build Qt libs with fast atomics for arm5 because arm5
>>> libs will be downloaded Ministro *only* on arm5 devices and AFAIK
>>> there is no SMP arm5 device. The problem is that your apps are not
>>> downloaded by Ministro :) and if they are built only using armv5 they
>>> will be loaded by a SMP device and they will have problems, so arm5
>>> atomics must be SMP safe.
>>>
>>> Anyway we have to address the problem once and for all !
>>>
>>> If any of you has any other Ideas please don't hesitate to share
> them with us.
>>> Also any comments/feedback will be very appreciated.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> BogDan.
>>>
>>>
>>> [1]
> https://groups.google.com/group/android-ndk/browse_thread/thread/a792d8392b01f389/ecbad8bb4981ed8d
>>> [2]
> http://commits.kde.org/android-qt/aa14a65fd29f20adb7aa22b354c975d76266bed1
>>> [3] http://community.kde.org/Necessitas/Meetings/QtCS2011
>>>
>>>
>>> 2012/6/10 Bruno Zerbo<bruno.zerbo at gmail.com>:
>>>> Thanks BogDan for your work.
>>>> cheers,
>>>> Bruno
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2012/6/10 BogDan Vatra<taipanromania at gmail.com>
>>>>> Hello folks,
>>>>>
>>>>> Unfortunately I have more bad news regarding alpha4 release,
> I
>>>>> manage to fix the OpenGL problem, but I discover another one.
> The
>>>>> startup of all applications has slowdown a lot (2-4 times), the
>>>>> problem is the difference between alpha3 and alpha4 is huge
> (1000+
>>>>> patches). Alpha3 is based on Qt 4.8.0-rc and alpha4 is based on
> Qt
>>>>> 4.8.2, to be sure the problem is not caused by me, I have to
>>>>> cherry-pick all my changes and put them on top of alpha3, them,
> if is
>>>>> not my fault the pain begins, I'll have to merge Qt 4.8.0,
> check, then
>>>>> Qt 4.8.1, then Qt 4.8.2. This is going to be a very slow and
> painful
>>>>> process which will take days (even weeks) so, I don't
> believe alpha4
>>>>> will be out before QCS, unless a miracle happens and I'll
> found the
>>>>> issue in the next days.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sorry for the bad news ...
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> BogDan.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 2012/6/4 BogDan<taipanromania at gmail.com>:
>>>>>> This
> http://files.kde.org/necessitas/installer/MinistroActivity.apk is
>>>>>> the link to Ministro.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> BogDan.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jun 4, 2:02 pm, BogDan
> Vatra<taipanroma... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As you may know the alpha4 release is approaching,
> the plan is to
>>>>>>> have it ready before Qt Contributors Summit. It is
> almost completed, I
>>>>>>> need a few days to polish the style plugin and Minitro
> and another few
>>>>>>> to add support for context menus.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A few days ago I pushed to Minnistro's
> "unstable" repository the
>>>>>>> current alpha4 branch in order to check if the existing
> released apps
>>>>>>> are still working. Even we've made some heavy
> changes and even if I
>>>>>>> warn you that it may break the compatibility with older
> versions, I
>>>>>>> wanted alpha4 to be backward compatible with alpha3, it
> is also a test
>>>>>>> for Necessitas developers to see if we can keep our
> promise: to ship
>>>>>>> releases which are backward compatible!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you want to try it yourself please follow the next
> two steps:
>>>>>>> - uninstall official Ministro and use this
>>>>>>>
> onehttp://files.kde.org/necessitas/MinistroActivity.apk.
>>>>>>> - install and run Ministro configuration tool (from
> market) and
>>>>>>> choose unstable repository.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Don't forget that Ministro is not stable and it may
> crash/hang, if you
>>>>>>> encounter any problems please reply on this thread.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Shorty after the repository was ready, I tried a few
> apps from market
>>>>>>> and two major problems pop up:
>>>>>>> - The first problem was related to some missing symbols
> and was caused
>>>>>>> by compilation/linking flags.
>>>>>>> - The second one is related to OpenGL and it seems to
> be caused by the
>>>>>>> merge with Qt 4.8.2.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1. Missing symbols problem: Android comes with almost
> no support for
>>>>>>> C++, so to compile Qt we used (static) gnu-libstdc++.
>>>>>>> Then I discovered that this was a big mistake (for more
> information
>>>>>>> check Android NDK docs/CPLUSPLUS-SUPPORT.html
> "II.3. Static runtimes:"
>>>>>>> section).
>>>>>>> We can not use link libstdc++ statically if we are
> using more than one
>>>>>>> shared libraries in a project. To fix this problem I
> had two choices:
>>>>>>> - to use the shared libstdc++ implementation and to
> change all the
>>>>>>> scripts in order to add it to ministro (1.2M).
>>>>>>> - to "embed" the whole library into QtCore
> library (it adds and extra
>>>>>>> 600K) but this change requires no additional changes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I choose the second one [1],[2] because it was safe and
> easy and
>>>>>>> mostly because it didn't needed any other changes.
>>>>>>> If anybody has something against this change speak now
> or forever hold
>>>>>>> your peace !
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'd like to add exceptions and RTTI by default, if
> the size and speed
>>>>>>> will not be affected.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2. OpenGL problem: After I merged alpha4 branch with
> upstream Qt
>>>>>>> 4.8.2, most of the OpenGL apps are not working anymore,
> I tried to fix
>>>>>>> it my self but I end up with a very ugly workarround.
> It seems that
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
> "boolQGLContext::areSharing(constQGLContext*context1,constQGLContext*contex
>>>>>>> t2)"
>>>>>>> always returns false. I tried to trace the problem but
> with no luck
>>>>>>> and I end up adding a super dirty workarround: on
> android,
>>>>>>> "QGLContext::areSharing", will always returns
> true. I really don't
>>>>>>> like it, so until we'll figure out what is wrong
> the release process
>>>>>>> will stop ...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Any help will on this matter be very appreciated !
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've spot another minor problem with old assets
> support it was caused
>>>>>>> by "QString
> QDeclarativeTypeLoader::absoluteFilePath(const QString
>>>>>>> &path)" I fixed it locally but I didn't
> had time to push the fix to
>>>>>>> Minsitro's repository yet.
>>>>>>> I'll keep you post with the progress and with any
> Ministro repository
>>>>>>> changes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>> BogDan.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
> [1]http://quickgit.kde.org/index.php?p=android-qt.git&a=commit&h=8c4c862...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
> [2]http://quickgit.kde.org/index.php?p=android-qt.git&a=commit&h=abe85f4...
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Necessitas-devel mailing list
>>> Necessitas-devel at kde.org
>>> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/necessitas-devel
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Necessitas-devel at kde.org
>> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/necessitas-devel
>
> -- Willy Gardiol
> willy at gardiol.org
> www.gardiol.org
> www.trackaway.org -> Track YOUR way the way you want!
> _______________________________________________
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>
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